Well, Bonney-Liles had the edge in points, 33-27, but Chartier got the win, 59-58.

“I think he’ll take that,” Elmendorf said. “It was a great game. They’re good. They’ve got great firepower. The kids played hard, they played tough. That’s a big win for us.”

“They came out hard, they played very well,” Broncos coach Marty Edwards said of the ‘Dogs, now 5-2 while his Broncos fell to 6-2. “Max Chartier played a great game. We knew this game was going to be all about intensity, and it was.”

And it came down to the wire, thanks to Bonney-Liles’ 14 fourth quarter points after the Broncos trailed 47-34 after three. He had three 3-pointers in a 34-second span that made it a 51-49 game with 4:06 left.

But the Broncos never led in this game. They started out trailing 7-2, trailing 15-8 after one. They were down 27-13 in the second but rallied to pull to within 29-24 at the half. But then the ‘Dogs went on an 11-0 run to grab a 40-24 lead before they took that 13-point edge into the final period.

Connor Lambert added 9 for the Broncos, but couldn’t hit a potential game-tying bucket with just over a minute to go. Chartier hit two free throws with 56 seconds left for a 58-54 lead. Lambert did hit a trey to account for the final with four ticks left, but it was too little, too late.

“We couldn’t get over that mountain,” Edwards said. “We came on their late. I’m proud of our guys, they came back and made it a tough ball game. We’re going to build on this, learn a lot from this game, and move on to the next one.

“They came on hard from the start. We’ve got to come out fast, just like everybody else.”

The Bulldogs now have had a good stretch with wins over Winnacunnet, Portsmouth and now the Broncos. Chartier has been a key, and fans at Alvirne saw two of this season’s top Division I players.

“Max is Max, he’s really really good, a tough kid, I think he played the whole game,” Elmendorf said. “He’s special. And I told Marty before the game I thought his Max is one of the top two or three players in the state.”